In preparing and using a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, there is liable to be accumulated static electricity in a light-sensitive material. Such static accumulation will cause many troubles. One of the most serious troubles is that a light-sensitive emulsion layer is hit by light emitted by discharge of static electricity prior to development of the light-sensitive material and there will resultingly produce dot-like spots or twig- or feather-like irregular and uneven density. This phenomenon is so-called a static mark that seriously impair or sometimes, entirely destroy a commercial value of a photographic light-sensitive material. Such static marks cannot be found until light-sensitive materials are developed. This trouble is, therefore, one of the very troublesome problems. The above-mentioned accumulation of static electricity also causes an adsorption of dusts on a surface of a light-sensitive material, from which other secondary troubles such as a coating trouble may be derived. Further, since the supports of any light-sensitive materials are hydrophobic, accumulation of static electricity usually becomes greater and, in addition, the higher a processing rate and a sensitivity of an emulsion, the more the static marks, so that light-sensitive materials are seriously affected thereby.
With the purpose of preventing photographic light-sensitive materials from accumulating static electricity (i.e., electrification), variety of substances have been used so far to serve as antistatic agents. They are ionic and conductive or hygroscopic substances, with which electrification may be prevented by giving a conductivity to a light-sensitive material so as to rapidly eliminate an accumulated charge in advance of discharging it.
As for the methods of providing an antistatic property directly to the supports of photographic light-sensitive materials, there have been known methods including, for example, one in which the above-mentioned substance is incorporated directly into a support comprising a macro-molecular substance, and the other in which the above-mentioned substance is coated directly over to a surface of a support. In the latter case, the surface of the support is coated with an antistatic agent directly or in mixture of such a macromolecular substance as gelatin, polyvinyl alcohol, cellulose acetate, polyvinyl formal, polyvinyl butyral and the like. There is also another method in which an antistatic agent is incorporated, as well as into a light-sensitive emulsion layer, into such a non-light-sensitive auxiliary layer as a backing layer, an antihalation layer, an interlayer, a protective layer and so forth and there is available a further method in which an antistatic agent is coated over a developed light-sensitive material so as to prevent it from adsorption of dusts in handling.
In the meantime, when using the known antistatic agents for high-speed silver halide light-sensitive materials, few of them can provide a satisfactory antistatic effect especially at the conditions of a substantially low humidity, or they lose an antistatic effect to aging. It has, therefore, been difficult to apply them. With the purpose of solving the above-mentioned troubles, there have so far been attempts to develop a variety of antistatic agents so as to apply them to photographic light-sensitive materials. For example, as described in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter called Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) Nos. 18728/1979 and 159222/1979, the so-called ionen type polymers having a dissociative group in a main polymer chain have been applied to silver halide light-sensitive materials. However, low solubilities of those polymers in organic solvents are liable to have a defect to result in forming an opaque or striped layer on a support instead of a regular layer in applying them to a light-sensitive material, which prevents them from providing a satisfactory antistatic property.